[ApolloFortyNine]

>“Our estimate is that about 200 to 400 pedestrians a year would not have died if vehicles had remained approximately the same size over the past quarter-century,” the report continued. “That represents about 10 percent of the recent increase in pedestrian deaths.”

Am I crazy? The article itself points out that only 10% of the increase would have been 'saved' if cars had remained the same size. This goes directly against the title no?

There's certainly more than one reason, my gut would point to more smart phone use both by drivers and even by pedestrians themselves.

I wonder if one day using a smart phone while driving will have the same stigma as a DUI (and similar punishment). I struggle to argue it shouldn't, its sometimes a little crazy to think about that if the person in the other lane gets distracted on their phone, I might be involved in a head on collision at 60+mph.

[throwworhtthrow]

The quote you've selected is an unfortunate example of the NYT poorly summarizing the findings of their own study (not your fault, they're the ones who wrote it). You can find a more precise explanation at the end of the article in the Methodology section.

"200 to 400" is from their model of decreasing hood height for existing collisions. But from the article:

> There are two reasons bigger vehicles are deadlier: They have taller hoods. And they tend to have larger blind zones.

It doesn't appear that NYT included in their model the larger blind zones and how that causes more collisions. So they shouldn't have said their 200-400 estimate covers the increase in vehicle "size" when it only models one dimension of size growth.

[carlosjobim]

This is how modern online influencing works.

10 000 people will see the headline here on HN or somewhere else and form their opinion based on it only.

1000 people will open the article

Out of those, 200 people will understand that the title is completely false relevant to the data.

Out of those 200 people, 150 people will still deny that the title is a lie, down vote, or try to sidetrack, because even a lie has to be supported if it supports their own political agenda.

[cucumber3732842]

Whatever society figures out how to solve this behavior will mop the floor with us.

[petcat]

And it doesn't quantify how many other lives have been saved specifically because the accidents involved bigger, sturdier, safer cars/trucks/SUVs. That has to be a significant statistic.

[timw4mail]

For the bigger vehicle, perhaps, but a smaller vehicle, even if up to modern standards, is less safe due to the larger one.

[b0rtb0rt]

unfortunately it’s an arms race at this point and the only correct choice is to get a bigger vehicle to protect yourself

[gf000]

E=1/2mv^2

The energy of a crash at the same speed is linearly scaled with mass though. Especially when you have two such monsters collide, it's significant.

[Marsymars]

I expect energy dissipation scales in a similar way... e.g. I'd expect a head-on crash of two light cars to be roughly comparable in severity to occupants to a head-on crash of two heavy cars. Is my intuition off here?

[LearnYouALisp]

For the same speed, the total energy would be Car-v^2 vs SUV-to-Car-v^2

But the smaller cars are probably more carefully designed for "crunch" zones, preserving their occupants by maximizing the effect of available material. The nominal energy involved vs Cars would simply scale as Mass of SUV in Cars.

[Marsymars]

Right, I'm aware of the energy the calculations give, but I don't see a good reason to assume that smaller cars have more efficiently designed crumple zones. I'd expect crumple zones on larger cars to scale in energy dissipation roughly linearly with mass. (Assuming similarly structured cars - e.g. I'd expect cars with safety cages and body on frame vehicles to perform differently from unibody vehicles.)

[jmaw]

I do think the article title is a bit misleading.

"75% More Pedestrians Have Been Killed Since 2009. Giant Trucks and SUVs Are *One Reason*" would be a more accurate title based on my reading.

[NamTaf]

> I wonder if one day using a smart phone while driving will have the same stigma as a DUI (and similar punishment).

Thankfully, it is beginning to, in some places outside the US.

> You can be fined $1,251 and have 4 demerit points recorded against your traffic history for using a mobile phone illegally while driving. [1]

> 0.05 and over, but under 0.10

Disqualification: 1 to 9 months

Fine: $2,336 [2]

[1]: https://www.qld.gov.au/transport/safety/road-safety/mobile-p...

[2]: https://www.qld.gov.au/transport/safety/road-safety/drink-dr...

[joeyhage]

> “While vehicle safety is critical, blaming larger vehicles for pedestrian deaths overlooks systemic issues” including the design of roads, said Mike Levine, a spokesman for Ford.

This is from the NYT article